Paul Johnson remembered

A few weeks ago I mentioned having a little red address book.

It was given to me 40 years ago when I left my first job in PR and I still refer to it today even though most of the contact details - many of them from the Eighties and Nineties - are out of date.

I name-dropped a few people, some of them quite well known at the time, whose addresses and phone numbers from that period are in the book, although I couldn’t always remember why.

One of them was journalist and historian Paul Johnson whose death was announced yesterday. The former New Statesman editor and Spectator columnist was 94 and as often happens the news jogged my memory.

You probably need to be my age or older to remember but for a long time Johnson was a significant figure in politics and the media.

Having been an ardent socialist in the Sixties he went on a political ‘journey’ and became a devout supporter of Mrs Thatcher. (He later endorsed Tony Blair but that’s another story.)

Back in the Eighties he was also a fierce critic of the BBC which is how our paths crossed.

Shortly before publishing my first Media Monitoring Report in November 1986 a handful of eminent journalists were invited to a private dinner to discuss the findings and I’m pretty sure Paul Johnson was one of them.

Either way, when the report was published he was one of its biggest cheerleaders, devoting an entire column to it in The Spectator.

My original copy of that issue disappeared many years ago but after a quick search online I found it in The Spectator archive, headlined ‘Bias in the Duopoly - Paul Johnson welcomes the first report of a new broadcasting monitor-unit’.

Describing it as a ‘real eye-opener’, he wrote:

This substantial document must be read in full by everyone in public life directly involved in the workings of the duopoly [BBC and Independent Broadcasting Authority], and especially by members of the IBA and the BBC Board of Governors. For MPs and journalists who feel they have not time to go through the whole thing, there is an admirable 15-page introduction, which summarises the first conclusions of the survey.

After listing many of the findings he added, ‘[The] MMU’s first report is abundantly rich in detailed material, and I shall be returning to it’, which he did. Then, in June 1989, he devoted another column to our work, noting:

The latest report of the Media Monitoring Unit on British television current affairs programmes, covering the period April-December 1988, detects signs of a distinct change. It begins to look as if the drive by [Director-General] John Birt to achieve greater objectivity and accuracy in the BBC current affairs presentation is having some effect.

Or, to put it another way, the pressure the MMU was putting on the BBC was also having an impact.

Overall though our research continued to find significant evidence of political bias in television current affairs programmes, leading Johnson to conclude:

[The] Media Monitoring Report justifies [its analysis] with 66 pages of detailed assessment of the series monitored, and a further 72 pages of descriptive analysis of individual programmes in them. This is accompanied by a description of its aims and methodology. I don't think any fair-minded person who actually troubles to read it through can fail to be concerned by the state of 'the best television system in the world', as its defenders laughably call it. If you don't believe me, look at the Report yourself.

We were of course very grateful for these endorsements because they helped put the MMU on the map.

For a broader appreciation of Paul Johnson’s sometimes controversial career I recommend this obituary:

Paul Johnson, prolific journalist and historian who started on the Left but became a champion of the Right (Telegraph)

See also: Paul Johnson was a man who never wrote a dull sentence (Daily Mail)